


Brick by Brick

by Virodeil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Development, Character Study, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Don’t Have to Know Canon, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Escapism, Loneliness, POV Harry Potter, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Stream of Consciousness, Understanding, Unexpected Fluff, Universe Alteration, character introspection, unexpected help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 08:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23475040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virodeil/pseuds/Virodeil
Summary: After his first recallable punishment of a long, long week without meals in his cupboard, little freak boy dreams and vows that he will never go hungry, thirsty, locked in and lonely again. He will achieve it brick by brick, figuratively or literally.Or…What may happen if the little boy that should have been Harry Potter is more proactive and crafty, not only defiant? What may happen if Arabella Fig is much more secretive and much more sympathetic to the plight of a helpless little child?(The experiences, understandings and opinions of a stunted child with lots of potentials, regarding topics and events which are oftentimes far from childlike.)
Relationships: Harry Potter & the Dursley Family
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	1. Determination

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know where to put this fic, since there are various elements of fandom crossovers in it, all of which can be read without being confused – or so I think, at least. So, for now, I am putting it in the Harry Potter section. Regardless, I do hope you will enjoy the ride. Please tell me what you think of things you find here? I would really love to know!  
> Rey

Summer 1984

There is a little boy who lives in the cupboard under the stairs of the house on Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England. This little boy has little to him. Not even a name and a birthday, as he is called either “freak” or “boy” by the family of three who live upstairs, and what use is a birthday for a freak? He has his bright green eyes, his messy black hair which always stays the same, his little, skinny body, two sets of ratty and far oversized clothes, and little else. Not even a mind, “Uncle Vernon” likes to say.

` _But, if I don’t have any mind, why can I think and feel? A mind is for thinking and feeling, he said,_ ` the little boy asks himself, confused and angry and tentatively hopeful. After all, he does _feel_ how his belly, long empty, twists and sinks into itself, probably trying to eat itself because there hasn’t been any food put into it for a week already. And he does _think_ how unfair the punishment that led to this predicament is, and how he might avoid more punishments like this in the future, and how he might even _succeed_ in leaving the house and the family someday _soon_ , for ever and ever and ever.

Why soon? Because he was still learning how to fry bacon correctly a week ago, and “Aunt Petunia” already cupboarded him _entirely_ for burning his learning piece, with no hint of when he will be let out. What will she or “Uncle Vernon” do if he did something worse? Like, maybe, break a vase or the stove? He would rather not find out.

Sadly, his previous attempts to leave have never succeeded. In fact, each attempt resulted in worse and worse punishments, namely longer and longer sessions of being belted by “Uncle Vernon,” with longer and longer times of no-meal punishment and more chores by “Aunt Petunia.” It is quite a huge dilemma, between more time locked in the cupboard with his own poop and pee and a small bottle of water and more chores to do while hungry and in pain, and the little boy is made more frightened and cornered by it.

` _I **need** to go,_` he thinks, senses, feels, wishes, begs.

And, as if responding to his desperate wish, the bolt lock on his cupboard’s door clacks open, sounding like thunder in the stillness of the night.

The little boy jolts and curls into himself on the old, stained, smelly dog mattress that is his bed, awaiting punishment for yet another freaky thing that he must have done, accidentally or not.

Nothing in the ambient noises changes, though. He waits for a long, long, long time, but the snores from upstairs remain the same, and the very, very faint noise of nature outside the house likewise.

` _I wanted to go, and the door opened for me,_ ` he marvels. He even pinches softly at his terribly dry skin, checking if he is dreaming.

The pain that he feels from that small action is a beautiful thing, now, instead of a bitter one.

Carefully, carefully, carefully, he inches the two halves of the door outward, wincing at the loud, crieking noise it makes. But, even after a tense while waiting for any reaction from upstairs, the noises don’t change. So, carefully, carefully, carefully, he pads on bare, silent feet to the kitchen, and straight to the pantry closet.

It is, as always, a heaven of various rather long-lasting foodstuffs. His belly rumbles and twists even tighter, just by looking at the shelves of boxes, crates, tins, packets, bags, sacks, jars, tubs and bottles. He shoves warningly into the stupid belly, but it only makes him want to throw up, so he satisfies himself with being thankful that the sleeping family upstairs still don’t wake up from all the noises. After all, he will need some time to filch some supplies without making even more noises, and he won’t be able to do anything if the family is awake to harass him.

With that in mind, he begins to work, carefully, carefully, carefully selecting tinned soups which have at least two duplicates in stock and picking up the one on the very back. Afterwards, just as gingerly and slowly, he picks up two bottles of water the size of his arm, a few apples, and a sack of flour the size of his chest. All the loot goes into a spare – among many – shopping bags that he fishes out from a cardboard box by the pantry’s door, before he drags it to his cupboard for safekeeping.

He can only hope that this will not end up like the last time he smuggled food and water into his cupboard. The punishment that “Uncle Vernon” gave him after that is too horrible to even remember. It made him go to the hospital for the first time ever, and the _far longer_ list of chores that “Aunt Petunia” gave him after that, while he was barely recovered, only added to the misery. But then, he was so stupid, just letting his pilfered tins and bottles lie around on his bed; and he happened to have picked the last tin of tomato soup that “Aunt Petunia” had wanted to use that day, at that.

Now, he covers the heavy, bulging shopping bag under his spare set of clothes, carefully, carefully, carefully making it look just like a messy heap of garments, like those in “Cousin Dudley’s” bedroom. The “heap” is also somewhat hidden behind his bucket of pee and poop.

Sadly, before he can go for the fridge to see what he can eat right now, one of the snoring sounds from upstairs – the softer snoring sound, to be exact – suddenly stops, then the master bedroom’s door clicks open.

“Aunt Petunia.”

Heart pounding, the little boy waits until the upstairs toilet flushes to carefully, carefully, carefully inch the cupboard’s door shut. He can only hope that the long, noisy sound from above manages to mask the noise down here. He daren’t imagine what kind of punishment the grown-ups will give him, if he is caught now.

He daren’t get out of the cupboard for the rest of the night, as the result. He even wishes with all his might, until a strange tingle runs up and down his body, that his loot here is safe and protected and forgotten by all three people sleeping upstairs. Maybe the unlocked cupboard bolt lock incident is repeatable?

Well, in any case, he feels so very exhausted, now, all of a sudden, far more than before, and there’s a strange field of tingles round his hidden loot.

He drops into a light doze and jerks back into wakefulness in what feels like barely a moment after, when his cupboard’s door is yanked open and “Aunt Petunia’s” sharp voice snaps at him in a hiss, demanding him to make breakfast. “And don’t you burn this one too, boy, or it’s another week in this stinking hole for you!”

The little boy obeys her, staggering with slitted eyes to the kitchen, no longer accustomed to the morning light. But he is soon shunted to the back yard to clean himself with the hose and his lumpy amalgamation of soap stubs, after “Aunt Petunia” proclaims him as stinky as his cupboard.

This makes him late to make breakfast, as he can already hear “Uncle Vernon” yawning loudly and stomping upstairs by the time he comes into the kitchen, and so he is punished for it. There will be no breakfast for him today.

“And no stealing, either,” “Aunt Petunia” sharply reminds him.

` _I hope she doesn’t notice what I took from the pantry,_ ` the little boy winces inwardly.

The smell of the cooking bacon makes him feel both faint and about to throw up. But he is determined not to ruin the breakfast today, so he does his best.

Well, his best still sees a corner of one of the bacon rashers burnt, sadly. Luckily, he manages to cut it with the flat edge of the spatula, then flips it to a spot behind the stove when “Aunt Petunia” isn’t looking, so he is still safe.

“Aunt Petunia” teaches him how to make various kinds of fried eggs, after he is finished with the bacon. The smell is even more dizzying and throw-upping, but he persists doggedly. The grown-ups won’t have any reason to punish him today or any time after.

Still, he takes the time to gag uselessly amidst the sound of running water when he is next sent to clean the upstairs bathroom, as the first chore of the day. Luckily, after he takes a few sips from the tap there, the urge to throw up lessens a little.

Even more luckily, among the various chores that “Aunt Petunia” has listed out to him, he is to clean “Cousin Dudley’s” two bedrooms. The bedrooms are dirty and messy and even somewhat smelly, yes, but they are also filled with treasure, _each_!

He manages to secrete away a handful of loose coins and even a few pound notes in the folds of his oversized trousers, while tidying up in “Cousin Dudley’s” main bedroom. He pilfers the smallest book among the other, far larger boy’s untouched collection of picture books in the second bedroom, and puts it flush against his back, pinned in place by the rope that holds his trousers up. Lacking any more place for big things, he gathers his other finds in the far corner under the baby bed that’s also there, neatly tucked into a little backpack which is apparently too colourful even for “Cousin Dudley,” with how _brand_ new it is.

He finds a few more loose change of money in the master bedroom, where he goes next. The coins and pound notes are even found in dusty places, so none of the grown-ups will be suspicious.

As night comes again, the little boy finds himself locked back in the cupboard under the stairs; with clean body, clean bucket, not-so-empty belly, and with various little, useful things from all round the house secreted away under his bed. The fierce determination that has pushed him forward all throughout the day now makes him unable to sleep, but maybe it’s a good thing. He is determined to go away as soon as possible and never come back, after all, so he can’t slouch even for a night.

He was ordered to oil all the door hinges today, and he managed to sneak some oil to rub into his cupboard’s hinges. So, maybe, he will get lucky tonight and pilfer some more things from the newly stocked pantry, or even the fridge.

Remembering the brief excursion to the neighbourhood’s household shop, he frowns. Somebody – a _grown-up_ – _bowed_ to him, when he was going out of the shop behind “Aunt Petunia” and “Cousin Dudley.” The grown-up called him “Mister Potter,” with an awed tone that he sometimes overheard used by the other children in the neighbourhood, but that is not much of a problem, since freaky things seem to like happening to him or all round him, including this one. The problem is: The grown-up greeted him _after_ briefly looking at his forehead; at his lightning-bolt-like scar, most likely. The scar is maybe what made him fail to go away and never come back before! ` _If I want to be able to go and not come back, the scar must be gone or hidden,_ ` he thinks.

So, when the house settles into its nighttime noises, he opens the door in the same freaky way as before, though now no longer accidentally, and sneaks up the stairs to “Cousin Dudley’s” second bedroom. He will hide the scar with a crayon or a colouring pencil, or hide it through another shape, and for that he needs to look slower and better through “Cousin Dudley’s” discarded and broken things. He found a few crayon stubs in the main bedroom during his cleaning, yes, but the colours sadly don’t match his skin or the scar. They are neither blue nor green nor purple, after all!

Well, he does find a packet of broken but complete colouring pencils underneath the stack of untouched picture books, thankfully. Emboldened, he rummages more, ever so slowly and gingerly, and finds _three_ kits of writing tools.

Eyes wide, he tucks one into the bag that he previously hid under the bed. ` _I just need the writing book that “Cousin Dudley” used last month, now!_ `

His happiness doesn’t last long, sadly, but as per usual in this house. He has to dive under the baby bed, keeping his new bag of things company, when a set of heavy footsteps trying to be sneaky sounds from the master bedroom, _getting closer_.

“Uncle Vernon.”

And he has just realised that, in his excitement of getting what he wanted to find, _he forgot to close both the cupboard’s door and this bedroom’s too_.

Then again, he forgot to listen to the clicking sounds of the doors before he did anything as bold as going out of his cupboard. And he indeed _didn’t_ hear a second door-click in the nighttime routine.

The grown-ups have put a trap for him, apparently. The list of chores with the oiling of the door hinges and the bedroom cleanings….

` _Please let him pass. Please let him pass. Please let him pass,_ ` he thinks, chants, wishes, begs. Curled tight behind his bag in the farthest corner under the bed and with his body all atingle, he jams a fist into his mouth to stifle his sobs.

And then, as “Uncle Vernon” thumps softly down the stairs, passing “Cousin Dudley’s” second bedroom indeed, the panicking little boy realises that _his newly pilfered things are still under his bed in the cupboard under the stairs, **unprotected**_.

` _I must be down there! They will be **mad** if they know!_` he senses, thinks, wishes, begs. Screwing his eyes tight, though it’s useless against the tears that are now pouring down his hollow cheeks, he wills the tingles to carry him to his bed, with all his might, so that “Uncle Vernon” won’t _know_.

He falls unconscious before he knows for certain if this desperate wish, too, has come true.


	2. Dream

Winter 1984

The little freak of a boy, maybe also named “Mister Potter,” still lives in the cupboard under the stairs of the house on Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England. Although the summer in which he found the true, fierce determination to go away and never come back has long passed, he stays, because he is yet to find the true means to do so and still support himself until he can work somewhere else.

He hasn’t been idle throughout this time, though, not that he can be truly idle in this house. He has been learning _lots_ , from his own observations and from “Aunt Petunia.” He can mend clothes and cook things and read the stock phrases used on his list of chores, now, and he can also build a simple brick wall and write a sloppy “ **poter** ” on the back wall of his cupboard, among others.

In fact, the brick-wall project, whose result has lined the flower-beds since autumn, as well as the stupid trap incident from that summer, has taught him something very, very valuable: “Don’t rush things. Be very, very, very careful or you will have to restart from the beginning – and get punished for wasting the materials, too. Do everything like building a wall: brick by brick with a polished finish. Nothing is finished before the result and the tools to make it have been neatened up.”

The trap incident has also changed his life in an unexpected way.

The family who live upstairs, rightly suspicious of what he might have taken from their house despite the seeming lack of evidence, has taken to locking him out of the house, doing chores or not, when he is punished for something or another. No more heaping indoor chores on him or locking him in his cupboard. As the result, the tool shed squatting at the farthest corner of the back yard is as much his living space as his cupboard under the stairs, now. In fact, nowadays, he spends more nights in the tool shed than in the cupboard.

When it was autumn, living outdoors like this was a rather pleasant change to living indoors, though chillier. He spent the nights locked in the tool shed, of course, but he was free to roam the back yard otherwise, with the pretence of weeding and gardening. When “Uncle Vernon” wasn’t home, he could even roam on the front yard, often peeking at the nice interactions between children and their parents happening at other homes, however hurtful it feels in his chest. When it is in the depth of winter like this, though….

The little boy sits huddled on the packed dirt on the middle inside the tool shed, surrounded by all kinds of gardening, carpentry and repare equipments. A huge tarp has been drawn all round the outside of this circle of mismatched things, folded painstakingly twice over and draping over into the poor nest as well, to act as a double wall inside the leaky walls of the tool shed. But, sadly, it’s still not enough, and the little boy shivers hard within his winter cloak, the family’s “Christmas present” for him, which used to be “Uncle Vernon’s.” His belly is hollow and hurting again, adding to the misery, and to think that this is only the third day of a second week-long punishment in his life! ` _If only I was more careful with that expensive wine and didn’t spill it on the table cloth when Cruncher came in. And then I ran **with the bottle** when it tried to bite me! I should’ve just let it bite me, maybe. Then the bottle wouldn’t have been broken and I wouldn’t be locked out here for a week. I can’t even go outside!_`

He wishes that “Aunt Marge,” “Uncle Vernon’s” sister, failed to come this Christmas. She always brings her big, vicious dog Cruncher with her! And this year she brought a tin of stale, a little mouldy dog biscuits for him as his Christmas present, and Cruncher thought that he was stealing its food and hated him ever since, and he had to throw a biscuit back up along with any other thing in his belly when he tried one yesterday, it was that aweful.

Sadly, he didn’t get to smuggle anything to eat from the house before “Uncle Vernon” locked him in here, and all his stolen supplies were still in the cupboard under the stairs. He won’t get anywhere even if he makes the tingles open the tool shed’s door and the back door and the cupboard’s door, though, since Cruncher is inside and will no doubt notice him. He has no wish to be punished like this for weeks and weeks and weeks!

` _But I’m still hungry, and thirsty, and chilly, and achy…._ `

He hugs himself closer, imitating the mother at the house on number 6 who cuddled a little girl after the latter fell down from her tricycle. ` _If only Mummy is here, and I’m with her…. I don’t mind if I’m a girl, if only she’ll hug me like that. It must feel so nice. That little girl looked like she liked it so much._ `

He dreams, and dreams, and dreams, and, slowly but surely, his head rests heavily on his folded-up knees. He slips calmly, smoothly into sleep, with an ache in his chest so sweet that there’s a little smile on his thin little face. And as he sleeps, warmth and comfort and safety like he never felt before blooms in him like the roses and lilies and petunias on the front yard last summer.

It’s all dark and empty, at first. And then he feels the water and power and dug-dugging, rush-rushing sound hugging him thoroughly from all sides, from head to toe. It’s odd, but lovely, and the loveliness beats away the oddness soon enough. The power sings to him, sometimes, and the dug-dugging, rush-rushing sound is ever-present. The water churns at times, too, and he finds himself riding it joyously.

Well, but, sadly, like all things good in his little life, this safe, warm, comfy experience ends too soon, and rudely at that. Without any warning, he is yanked out of his safe, warm, comfy place and into a cacophony of frantic grown-up noises, hospital-like smells, and a harsh beeping, oddly huffing sound that so poorly replaces the lovely dug-dugging, rush-rushing one he so loves. Worse, he hurts _all over_ , including deep in his chest and behind his eyes, and the latter hurts are the most hurtful of all.

He is asked lots and lots and lots of questions, when he is deemed better by the doctors and nurses. He is said to be a “miracle child,” for not dying from something called “hypothermia” and for waking up from a two-week “coma” without anything wrong in him. He is talked about in low, angry and fretful tones by those doctors and nurses when they think he can’t hear and understand them, although he knows that they aren’t angry at him. ` _It’s the same as last time, in some things,_ ` he thinks, ` _but I’m here longer, now. My punishment after this will be longer, too, then? Oh, I really don’t look forward to it!_ `

The doctors and nurses talk about getting him away from “abusive” people, which he takes to mean “hurtful” people, like the family living upstairs in the house on number 4. It’s really the same as before, as he notes. But, even before, it didn’t work, or this little freak of a boy would have been elsewhere, like he has often wished.

He thinks that the nicest thing those grown-ups could have done for him would be to let him stay in that so, so, so pleasant and lovely place. But they didn’t, and he knows that the worth of a freak’s word is nothing, and now he has to prepare himself to face the angry grown-ups at number 4 and a long, long, long list of chores. They might even give him indoor chores, now, for lack of outdoor ones in winter holiday, and he can’t look forward to it, although he _was_ looking forward to it, before he fell asleep that day. Now, he is simply so _tired_ with everything, deep deep down in his chest.

He gets to rest for a little while in the baby bed in “Cousin Dudley’s” second bedroom, when a kind doctor drives him back to the house on number 4 in her clean, lovely little car. The house’ grown-ups claims that it is his bedroom and he is just so messy with all the things that he has been given. The doctor asks difficult questions to the said grown-ups following that.

But she never comes back later, unlike what she has promised. All, as per usual, by this time, and the little freak of a boy has learnt not to hope.

He feels disappointed, all the same. And rather bitter, too, because his prediction of the long, long, long list of chores has indeed come true. And he can’t slip anything anywhere because “Aunt Petunia” is always following close behind, watching him sharply.

He is back living in the cupboard under the stairs, now, except for when “Aunt Petunia’s” most sympathetic neighbours and friends come to the house, giving her their praises of taking in “such a difficult child” and their sympathies for dealing with the same. In such times, he is locked in the tool shed again, silenced by the threat of being belted day and night by “Uncle Vernon” if he lets out or causes any sound.

This, too, is usual by now. What _isn’t_ usual is the sensations from the safe, comfy, warm place that linger vividly in his mind, to which he returns to whenever he can, and which he safeguards dilligently. It is far better than the dream of the flying motorcycle, or the green light and screaming, or the family hurting him even more and in absurd ways.

Far better, because he somehow _knows_ that it must have been real, once, and he is never lonely in there.

` _One day,_ ` he tells himself most seriously, ` _I will return there for real and I shan’t ever come back here._ ` And he keeps to the promise most dilligently of all.


	3. Defiance

Summer 1985

The little freak of a boy, who now – once more – lives in the cupboard under the stairs of the house on Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, when it is very cold outside, and who now also lives in the tool shed at the back of that house in the other times that it is warmer, finds himself more trusted to be and work inside the house once again. He takes care not to lose that trust, by taking just little things that he is sure the family won’t miss or suspect missing from the places he works in. They consist mostly of a few of the coins and notes scattered round “Cousin Dudley’s” ever-untidy, ever-full piggy bank, used plastic bottles that the little boy can fill with drinking water for just in case, pieces of random biscuits that he could nab from half-full tins and jars and packages, spare notebooks that neither the grown-ups nor the fat child will ever miss, writing and drawing tools – broken or not – that the family likewise don’t care about, and things long discarded that have been occupying “Cousin Dudley’s” second bedroom and the attic.

His ever-growing stash of loot, hidden by the tingles and his spare clothes, is still undetected, so he takes care to put forth some tingles just before the grown-ups can lock him in for the night, always. This way, they forget that they haven’t done so and leave him be. And this way, too, he can either eat from his stash, study from “Cousin Dudley’s” unwanted and discarded nursery books under a tingle-created ball of soft light, reorder and repack his stash, or plan about what to do the next day after thinking closely about all the information and experiences that he previously got, all in peace.

And he does have many, many, many plans, for many, many, many situations. Because, now that Dudley is in nursery school for half the day, “Aunt Petunia” drops the little freak with a very old, very odd grown-up named “Mrs. Fig,” who lives a few streets away in a house that is full of and smells strongly of cabbage and cats, for the same length of time. And this arrangement opens to many, many, many possibilities that the said little freak would like to use to its fullest.

He does nothing in the first day, since all the grown-ups – including Mrs. Fig and her cats – seem to watch him closely. In fact, he does and says nothing for the first two weeks to be sure, just doing what he is bidden to and observing everything as per usual, such as feeding Mrs. Fig’s many cats and looking at the photo albums of the said cats. But, in the third week, he begins to ask small, safe questions to the old grown-up, testing how she reacts and if she will report them to his… well, to the grown-ups of Privet Drive number 4.

It’s truly a blessing that she doesn’t mind him asking, and answers his questions to her best ability, distracted though she is oftentimes. Better yet, she only tells the family that “Harry” has been a good boy all day, without saying anything about his questions. So he actively helps her in the next days, offering to do the chores round her house that she hasn’t asked him to do, to repay her kindness.

She offers to give him “pocket money” for all the chores. It’s so nice of her, in his opinion, but he can’t trust that she won’t tell the family about this, so he refuses it in the politest way that he knows. Besides, he already got enough from cleaning round Privet Drive number 4, and he’s yet to find a way to spend the money that he got thus far anyway. Knowledge is a far more needed thing right now, he thinks, so, timidly and hesitantly, he asks her to teach him reading, something that he can’t really learn himself or by peeping into “Aunt Petunia’s” lessons with “Cousin Dudley.”

She borrows children’s reading and counting books for him from the library, in response! He can’t stop thanking her. He even cries! She looks so flustered and baffled and awkward, and that’s the only reason why he can control himself, at length. He doesn’t want to repay her with uneasy feelings. That would be quite a poor repayment! Instead, quietly and dilligently, he studies all that she can and will teach, including the boring penmenship repetitions with pencil, pen, and inked quill of all things. This will serve to get him a step closer to his dream of leaving Privet Drive number 4 forever, too, he thinks, since he will be able to apply for a scholarship far, far, far away when he can show that he is good enough. And when he is older, smarter, better and stronger, people like those who live at Privet Drive number 4 won’t be able to hurt him ever again.

Sometimes, Mrs. Fig slips up, telling him about things that don’t seem to make sense or be present in the world round him. She always clamps up tight and acts so nervous after that, so he daren’t ask her about those things, and only remembers the odd titbits deep in his mind. Somewhat guiltily, he also uses these moments to carefully, carefully, carefully wheedle favours and consessions from her, such as asking her to convince the family to let him stay in the library sometimes.

In fact, she _does_ ask that particular question to “Aunt Petunia” when the latter fetches him in the afternoon, citing a need to rest and play with her cats. And he gladly spends a week doing his splendidmost makeover on the old grown-up’s front garden when “Aunt Petunia” grumblingly complies.

He refines his plans, now that he has gained more freedom to be out and about. When not doing chores at Privet Drive number 4 or spending some time at Mrs. Fig’s, and in-between reading the many children-appropriate books that the library offers, he helps about in the greater neighbourhood, starting from the library. He knows that the family who live upstairs at Privet Drive number 4 have been spreading tales about him, saying that he is quite the little hooligan who is quite wild, lazy, stupid, disrespectful and violent, and this is his way to disprove the tales.

This way, the family can’t bar him from the outside, too, or for having good things for himself without them ruining those things. It’s proven when the helpees begin to wonder about his absence after three days of him being locked in the cupboard under the stairs for “contaminating the good folks” with his freakishness. The family even _get in trouble_ with the greater neighbourhood when he comes out of the house wearing “Cousin Dudley’s” raggedy, far oversized old clothes once more, instead of the fitting and gently worn secondhand clothes that the kindly folks have given him. And the said kindly folks don’t take it kindly when “Cousin Dudley” and friends try to harass him when he is helping them out, apparently.

Priceless.

More than money can ever buy. More than brute force can ever get. And definitely more than words can ever say, too, or the family would be winning their little battle by now by spreading those untrue tales to whoever wants – or doesn’t want – to hear.

His little body, unaccustomed to walking so far and doing so many things in one day, mostly outside at that, grumbles quite sharply and loudly during the first weeks of this new routine of his. But it’s a fair price, in his opinion. Besides, his body does get stronger, also less listless, and his skin gets less pallid, as the result. It’s awesome, in fact, come to think of it again!

During his roamings, answering to “Harry” when he needs a name to be called by, he also learns even more things while helping the neighbours, as most of them don’t mind him asking questions and learning things in exchange for his help. This way, he has managed to glean various kinds of information, ranging from a handful of big words and how to speak and pronounce things as he should, to all kinds of public transportation and how to navigate them. He has also managed to learn skills such as making homemade sweets and jams and knitting his own socks. And, as the bonus on top of the bonu _ses_ , he has a firm alibi for his aimless roamings whenever he isn’t out helping somebody, when he just wants to enjoy the day and soak in the ambience, because the helping part is such a well-known routine by now. In times like this, he just needs to avoid “Cousin Dudley” and friends, so that they won’t be able to report to their parents that the freak is actually “just lazing about” instead of working. The kindly folks round the greater neighbourhood even look out for the gang for him when they happen to be out and about themselves!

The little freak of a boy now doesn’t feel so lonely or trapped or freaky anymore, with so many people giving him warm smiles and greetings and helpful things and even _praises_ , all round the greater neighbourhood of Little Whinging. Not all the neighbours are kind to him, and some are indeed uncaring of whatever is going on round the neighbourhood itself, but “the good outweighs the bad by a good margin,” as one of the books that he reads says! Especially when “Aunt Petunia” starts to feed him more constantly and in greater portions, at the _dining table_ to boot so that she can teach him table manners, after more and more of the kindly folks round the greater neighbourhood wonder why he is so skinny, while he always gobbles up all kinds of food that they give him with great enthusiasm and gratitude, although with less manner expected of a well-bred-behaving boy.

He is rethinking moving away from Privet Drive number 4, in fact, by now. He is still called names and treated as a nobody there, and his living space is still much to be desired, but the better living conditions inside and outside of the house overall have bled out some of the determination out of him. Getting out of the house forever is still nice, very nice, but, maybe, just someday, not too soon. Especially not when, after he spied a book of odd symbols on her bookshelf on the mantlepiece, Mrs. Fig agrees to teach him about them – “ancient runes,” she says!

It’s all so very enjoyable for him, now. And, to think, it began with a desperate determination to defy the family who reluctantly shelter him in whatever way he could do….


	4. Discoveries

Winter 1985

The no-longer-quite-freaky little boy, who lives in the house on Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, and now roams the entirety of Little Whinging as a fact and a habbit, spends Christmas time this year in a daze.

` _I got presents! I got presents! I got **presents**!_` The notion runs and runs and runs in his mind on Christmas Eve, as he huddles in the cupboard under the stairs, fingering the colourful wrappers of the said presents softly, savouringly, wonderingly. The presents have been dropped on the doorstep of the house since a few days ago, and now he has wapping _ten_ beautifully wrapped packages of various sizes and weights piled in the cupboard with him. Better yet, the grown-ups of this house daren’t take the presents away for fear of the neighbours checking or him blabbing about it, and he’s been quick enough to spirit the presents away before “Cousin Dudley” could even see and ruin them.

And this year, the cupboard under the stairs is the comfiest that he has ever remembered. It’s now a warm, soft, safe, snug nest, with secondhand duvets and cushions bought from a secondhand knick-knack shop as bedding and low lining, brand-new sheets to cover it and him, and a couple of brand-new pillows for him to rest his head and cuddle. The tingles protect him from being locked in or bothered while he’s inside, and they also shrink his quickly growing stash of just-in-cases so that the latters fit well in the tingle-hidden packs which used to be “Cousin Dudley’s.” If he doesn’t lose the packs, he won’t be hungry and thirsty and bored for a long, long time!

It’s rather unbelievable, actually, and he’s been pinching the back of his hand regularly in-between stroking the still-wrapped presents, to make sure that this isn’t just a beautiful sleeping dream. His poor skin on that spot looks like he accidentally banged it with a hammer, by now.

Well, but he is reasonably sure that this isn’t a dream, _for now_. So, with pounding hard and a wide, wide grin stretching from ear to ear, he lifts and weighs the packages one by one in his hands, kneading each softly to guess what’s inside in the meantime and admiring – _again_ – some of the shapes the glossy wrapping papers take.

Impatience presses more and more insistently into his warm, warm chest – his heart, as the kindly folks say it – the longer he dithers. It wins after he has savoured and rearranged the presents five rounds more.

The first package that he opens – carefully, carefully, carefully – is from the neighbourhood of Magnolia Crescent, or so the yellow card glued to the top says, with green marker and boxy handwriting. It’s big and boxy and somewhat heavy, soft on top, neatly but plainly wrapped in red wrapping paper with Santa Claus print, tied with two lengths of wide yellow ribbon. And inside, he finds a _brand-new_ , full costume of Santa Claus _that he can wear_ , black belted boots and all! It’s far, far, far better than “Cousin Dudley’s” old, thinning, fraying winter gear that he’s been wearing this year! He will still be able to wear it next winter, even, he thinks, as the whole set seems a size or two larger than his sizes are right now.

The sea-world-themed children’s watch that he finds in the next present, wrapped in a soft, flappy, cream-coloured pouch that’s further wrapped in a Christmas-themed envelope, is also quite useful, as Mrs. Fig has begun to teach him about how to tell the time. The kindly folks on Wisteria Walk have given him this, and he begins to think that he needs to list all the presents and givers down, so that he doesn’t forget and can thank them later. He’s never been given a real Christmas gift before, after all! He wants to thank these very, very, very kind people properly.

So out comes one of his notebooks and a pencil, and he carefully, carefully, carefully notes down what he has been given and by whom, after putting “ **25 December 1985** ” on the top of the page, as Mrs. Fig has taught him about months and days and how to write the dates this last month. Then the slow, careful unwrapping and long, long marvelling continue, with a handkerchief handy because his eyes can’t stop leaking.

Slowly but surely and achingly sweetly, the Santa Claus costume set and sea-world-themed children’s watch are joined by a whole set of children’s encyclopedia, a huge, thick album of landscape and seascape photographs, a drawing-and-crafting kit box that includes colourful sand and glitters among other tools, a brand-new – _and just for him_ – big teddy bear, three sets of winter clothes, three sets of other clothes for warmer weathers, a box of various Christmas snacks, and a box of yarns in many colours.

As the night flows into Christmas Day, the little boy who is called “Harry” outside of Privet Drive number 4 buries is face into his pillow, hugs his brand-new teddy bear hard, and lets out the sobs that he has been valiantly trying to hold in. All the warm feelings have created a deeper and deeper ache in his chest, in his heart, and the pain digs in so deep, but it’s also so, so, so sweet, and he finally drowns in it, cut into pieces but so, so, so happy about it.

He willingly spends Christmas Day in the cupboard under the stairs, after cooking the Christmas meals and snacks for the family. It helps that, like in the other years, “Aunt Marge” is once more here with her dog Cruncher. But it’s not the real reason why he stays in his nest, and he even locks himself inside for once!

No, the real reason is because he needs _badly_ to make belated Christmas gifts for all the kindly folks who have given him such meaningful and useful presents, which were his first _ever_ in his memory. He doesn’t have the tools or the means for the fancier things he has in mind, and he can’t make big things because he wants to give presents to everyone in the greater neighbourhood, so he gets out the gently used carving kit which he bought alongside the duvets and cushions early last month. He has resharpened all the carving knives already, as “Aunt Petunia” taught him last year for the kitchen knives, and he does have blocks of wood – rescued from the rubbish bins, cleaned, chopped up smaller in some cases, and sanded smooth – formerly in preparation for self-taught carving practise. He just has to make sure that he doesn’t botch any carving, although this is his first time doing it, because he doesn’t have any more blocks of wood to spare and there are so many people to give these to. ` _Maybe I’ll just follow the grains and won’t try to make clear shapes yet. It’s maybe safer._ `

He can’t seem to see the softer grains, though, however bright he sets the tingle-light to and however close he puts the piece of wood to his eyes, while he thinks that seeing all the grains is important for the carving. Frustrated, he dims the light once more by retracting his tingles a little from it, sets the wood down beside him, and buries his face into the shoulder of his teddy bear. He thinks that he used to be able to see better, when he was far smaller than this, but his sight has gone worse and worse throughout the years. ` _How if I end up **blind** by the time I go to school? Will I still be able to get a scholarship? How can I help people if I’m blind? Will they leave me alone like before if I’m blind? Will the family still let me live here if I’m blind? Can I still do things if I’m blind? Can I use the thingles to make my sight better again? Will it really help instead of making me blind sooner?_`

Well, he is never one to prolong doing something that he doesn’t like. Although, then again, he can’t do such a thing, usually, since it’s ordered by “Aunt Petunia” or “Uncle Vernon,” and the orders from those grown-ups are _always_ to be obeyed, or he’ll be miserable indeed. Maybe, he needs to do it now – try to return his sight back to normal – before it gets too long and he gets too cosy with what he has now….

And if he fails entirely and returns to that nice place like last year….

Well, it’ll be better, he thinks, decides. After all, there’s nobody named “Dursley” there, unlike in here with “Uncle Vernon” and “Aunt Petunia” and “Cousin Dudley” and “Aunt Marge.”

So he takes a last look at all his precious, precious gifts, especially the book of landscape and seascape photographs, since he really wishes to visit those places when he’s bigger if at all possible. And then he tidies everything up, back into his tingle-protected, tingle-hidden packs, and reburies his face into his teddy bear.

` _Let this be okay. Let me see. Or let me return to that nice place, **please** ,_` he thinks, wishes, prays, begs, and lets the tingles flood inside of his own body instead of drawing them outside like before.

Pain like he never, never, never experienced before seizes him almost instantly, before he can direct the flood of tingles to his eyes. He screams, and screams, and screams, and the torture goes on. Before long, he can’t even hear anything, and all that’s there for him is only pain – burning, scalding, slicing, stabbing, throbbing, biting, pinching, punching, tearing, wringing, all in one.

And then, accompanied by the notion of something breaking free, the warm, safe, joyful place from before materialises again all round him, just as all pains are left behind.

` _I’m back! I’m back! I’m really back!_ ` is the first thing that he consciously thinks. He relishes the very thought of it, before he turns to the surroundings that he has missed so, so, so much in the last year.

He plays with the currents and swirls all about him. He explores his new living place with abandon. He listens wraply to the singing and crooning of the power. He relishes the dug-dugging and rush-rushing sound that’s ever-present in this place. And, now, he tries to sing and croon along with that so, so, so nice and warm and safe power, to try to return some of the warm feelings that it has given him. Everyone likes gifts, no? Now that he knows how so very nice receiving a gift feels like, he’d like to return the favour.

Vaguely, he remembers that he is – or was – about to do something about gift-giving to return favour to somebody, or maybe more than just one somebody. But he has just found that he _isn’t alone_ in here, because he has just noticed the little presence nearby with a littler set of dug-dugging and rush-rushing sound of its own, which sounds more like “took-took” and “foo-foo,” and it’s far more important than the thing he barely remembers.

The vague remembrance is completely forgotten, in fact, when he greets the other presence through emotions and receives a warm and curious reply, unlike when he tried to make friends with other children before… maybe.

Well, he doesn’t remember much of before this place, at any rate, and he can’t say that he minds much about it. He knows that the “before home” place doesn’t hold good memories, mostly, so why would anybody care about that? And this place is _home_ , indeed, unlike the other one.

It’s home, and it’s the only home that he needs or wants.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies. This chapter is the last available chapter that I have. The next one is still under development, and I do not know when it will be available. Thus far, I have only written the beginning of it, a few hundred words long. I hope you will be patient, and continue to accompany me in this ride till the end. Thank you very much for all the reviews, faves and follows. They truly motivated me to go on chipping into the next chapter. And shout out to **Brievel** who brought my attention to a misspelling – thank you!  
> Rey

Winter 1985

The little boy who used to live in the cupboard under the stairs and the tool shed of Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, should have remembered that, in his case, good things never lasts for long.

And this time, it’s a bad thing three times over.

His warm, good, comfy, safe, adored and adoring place, which has never felt like dark traps like the cupboard or the shed can be most of the times, is suddenly hit _very, very, very hard_ by something that lets out a very, very, very bad-feeling kind of tingles. It’s a nasty, nasty shock to him and his roommate, though maybe it shouldn’t have, after a long, not-so-good period of being violently tossed and flipped and swirled within their watery home. His roommate even freezes in place, neither doing nor “saying” anything, while they used to be rather chattery with their observations and bouts of curiosity.

But the little boy, who used to live in the cupboard under the stairs and the tool shed of Privet Drive number 4 and roam in the greater neighbourhood of Little Whinging, is used to being ambushed and harassed by “Cousin Dudley” and friends, and he couldn’t ever afford to freeze up when they’re doing that. Well, _this_ is far, far, far worse than being beaten up by those children when the right adults weren’t looking, but to him it’s still horribly similar. And so he tries to find another place to escape to, right away, however much he doesn’t want to abandon this home, which used to be so very nice and peaceful and comfy and fun.

He goes downwards, to the only other intact way that’s _somewhat_ big enough for him and his roommate if they take turns, accompanied by their protector’s sobs and cries of pain and fear that echo in their ruined, crumpling, draining home. Then, steeling himself as much as he can, and crying with horror of what he himself is doing, he forces the way to widen with his tingles, although it causes his very, very, very beloved protector and home even more pain.

It’s _not_ the natural way to go out, or the right time yet, his instincts blare out in protest. But the natural way to go out has been ruined by the hit and the bad, bad tingles, and his instincts _also_ say that he and his roommate will die if the water they used to love playing in completely drains out while they’re still home. So he persists, and his roommate pushes him onward from behind with their own tingles when this way out squeezes him so, so, so _painfully_ from all sides, making him stuck in the middle.

He won’t ever forget how his protector _screams_ when this tensile but overly small pipe begins to tear apart while he ever so slowly inches out.

But he won’t ever forget, too, how a huge, trembling something that’s coated with his protector’s tingles envelopes his front when he’s free, and how his protector’s voice resounds in his mind with so much pain and fear but so much warmth _just for him_.

` _Loki… Laufey-childe._ `

The screams are much, much, much worse when heard in the very, very, very unprotected and all-too-open outside, and they resume all too soon, just as the huge, trembling something is removed from his front. He _hates_ the fact that he feels too weak to do anything but cry and send his tingles to help free his roommate. He so wants, needs, hopes, wishes to help the one who has so joyfully, faithfully, _lovingly_ sheltered him and his roommate, _without_ hurting them in the process.

Other screams from other people join in the horrible, horrible air all round him, all of a sudden, moments after he hears a baby cry. His protector’s screams have petered out, and he is anxious why, and these new screams _don’t help_. ` _I want home!_ `

He really, really, really wants to be back with his home, his protector, and also with his roommate. But instead, after some jostling by… hands?… that don’t belong to his protector, and more shouting, he’s suddenly encased in something that’s solid and _very, very, very cold_ and… ` _I can’t breathe! Help! Please! I can’t breathe!_ `

And, just as suddenly, he wakes up, wide-eyed, gasping, in a strange, strange place that feels _very, very, very hot_.

And the constant harsh beeping, constant harsh huffing….

` _I’m in a hospital again. But how? Who brought me here? Why am I here? Why is it so hot? Where’s home? And the other one with me in there? Where are they? Hello? Please! It’s so hot in here!_ `

He tries to move, but finds that he is restrained. It’s not too uncomfortably so, in fact, but it’s really too hot in here, and he’s just been from a very, very, very scary experience, and so he just wants to be… ` _Out out out out out! Please!_ `

The beeping and huffing get harsher the more he struggles. Sadly, he can’t use his tingles, as they feel so weak right now. ` _But it’s so horrible in here!_ `

Through his watery eyes and unfocused “other” sense, he sees a nurse in scrubs lean over him. A moment after, he feels a soft pat on his shaking shoulder _but nothing else_.

He screams, angry and so, so, so afraid. ` _I don’t want to be trapped here! It’s worse than the locked cupboard and the shed combined!_ `

Instead of releasing him, though, the nurse gives him a shot of something that makes him dizzy and want to throw up.

In fact, he does throw up, a moment after. And then he chokes on his own mess because he can’t even turn his head to the side and lift the thing that covers his mouth and nose away.

The nurse has to scurry to release him so that he won’t inhale back much of the mess. He uses the time to break free on his own and, still coughing and gagging, scrambles up the side of something that might be a heated metal-and-glass box.

The nurse tries to catch him, next. But, propelled by the fear and the pain resulting from both his earlier ordeal and this one, the little boy evades her like an eel “Aunt Petunia” wanted him to kill and cook last autumn.

He manages to avoid the grown-ups, hospital carts, wheelchairs and a wheeled hospital bed with a covered body on top of it as far as the parking lot outside of the hospital proper. There, a couple of grown-ups who have just gone out of a car manage to stop him.

“Hey!” one of them squawks, when he gets a bite from the panicking little boy for picking the latter up. “Biting is bad, you know. Didn’t your mummy and daddy tell you? Where are they, anyway? Why are you outside in a _hospital gown_? Where are your shoes, young man? Oomph! Don’t kick! You’re quite a vicious little critter, aren’t you? Come on, let’s get you back inside. If you want to take a stroll, you should just ask your mummy or daddy to keep you company, you know, and don’t forget the proper clothes! Ooh – I can’t believe it – I sound like my mum!”

The little boy sprays the grabby grown-up with the leftover belly mess that went down the wrong place, just so, causing the said grown-up to _nearly_ drop him.

But unfortunately the grown up _doesn’t_ really drop him, and the other grown-up wipes the mess off without the first one ever letting him go, and he is carried further _into_ the hospital.

_Back_ into where he has been hurt, at least this time, instead of healed.

Begging doesn’t work on grown-ups, even on Mrs. Fig, but he begs anyway, to hopefully _never, ever, ever_ go back to the hospital.

Miraculously, the grown-up who isn’t holding him, the quieter and less touchy-feely one, asks why he doesn’t want to go back. She even pulls his carrier to the side, and _both_ of the grown-ups listen to him when, somewhat haltingly and a lot fearfully, he tells them what happened when he woke up. The _hot, hot, hot_ box comes up, and then the things tying him up in place, and then the throwing up and choking on his own mess, and then the all-too-late help of the nurse, and then the shot of something that made him feel even more horrible.

And the grown-ups _ask the hospital grown-ups_ about what happened to him. And they get angry _for him_ when they find out that, _yes_ , a new nurse was in charge of the “paediatric ward” alone recently while her supervisor was fetching a new plate of sconces for herself, and didn’t know what to do with a “hysterical child” who “claimed that he was too hot” while the heater was there to help bring up his low body temperature, and who tried to escape the restraints that were there “for his own good” after he had had several screaming spasms in the few hours before he woke up, and who apparently had an allergic reaction to a sedative that had used to work well with him.

“And this boy had those ‘screaming spasms’ _after_ you put him in that oven,” the grown-up who carries him, a Dr. Oberon Granger, snaps at the doctor who “prescribed the treatment.”

Cringing deep in the angry grown-up’s arms, the little boy nonetheless sees how the doctor shrugs offhandedly. And then, just as bluntly, the doctor – not the kind lady who treated him before – says, “This is his second case in two years. Always in winter. Always temperature-related. This is the best that I can do for him, Doctor Granger. There’s no medical record for him before last year, and his doctor then didn’t even return to work with her memories of ever treating him, after she brought him home. It’s all shady business, and I don’t want to be involved in it further than I do as a professional. The incubator did not have averse effect on him last year, from the records that the previous doctor submitted to the archives, so I utilised it to bring his temperature back to normal. Day-to-day interaction is up to the nurses, except for when there is a problem, as you well know, and the head nurse never reported anything amiss to me regarding the implementation of this treatment. It is possible that his body was trying to re-adapt to normal temperature after it had dipped down far lower than a healthy level, and I already told you about the sedative, which I _shouldn’t_. If you wish to do something, maybe you should talk to his guardians, as I can only help you up to this point. I would advise you not to, however, if you value the integrity of your mind.”

A soft cloth being wiped across his cheeks is the only clue to the little boy that he has accidentally shed tears, in his utter sadness that the nice doctor from last year hasn’t abandoned him, after all, but she has been hurt _for him_ instead, somehow. ` _I don’t want anybody hurt for me!_ `

The family hate his tears, though, silent or not, and “Cousin Dudley” is usually the most gleeful in making his life hard if he is seen crying, so he hastily wipes the tears away himself and apologises to the grown-ups for them.

Well, and for the bother, too, and the possible hurt, because nobody deserves to be hurt _for him_. He has dealt with the family and other nasty people like some of the neighbours since forever ago, so he can deal with them alone for some time longer, if he has to, without getting anybody else hurt for him. He _really, really, really_ doesn’t want what happened to his lovely home and protector from before he woke up to happen to anybody else. If he could take the hurts of his protector for himself, he would! But of course, he doesn’t say these latter parts to anybody. He doesn’t want to be called a freak here, too.

The doctor looks guilty, flustered and somewhat ashamed, in the wake of the long, blubbery confession. The carrier – who is also a doctor, somehow – looks _very, very angry_ but not at him. And the other grown-up, likewise.

“ _Fuck,_ ” the carrier – Dr. Oberon Granger, he remembers well – explodes, at last.

The little boy cringes further. ` _Maybe I shouldn’t have waited for so long. Must go now!_ ` Because, when “Uncle Vernon” started being explosive like this, he usually got the brunt of it, through punishments on _anything and everything_.

Shockingly, though, Dr. Oberon Granger, _a very, very angry grown-up_ , instantly _apologises_ to the little freak, instead of yelling at him or hitting him or worse.

And then, though the other doctor said that he wouldn’t help, he _does_ help the two grown-ups take the little boy _to their home_ , when the latter agrees to try to relax and go back to the hospital for daily check-ups instead of staying there.

This is most likely just another dream, or maybe another reality, since the one before he woke up in the hospital had seemed so real as well. But, dream or not, real or not, the little, freaky boy thinks that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t enjoy it to the fullest, similar to what he had with his lovely protector home and roommate.

Then, maybe, _when_ things go bad again, he already has a cache of good memories, like the caches of food and water and little things he had for when he was locked in for long in the cupboard or the shed.

He hopes so, at least, and hope has kept him going thus far.


	6. Deletion

Spring 1988

The home of Drs. Oberon and Jean Granger in Weybridge, Surrey, England, is lively with the voices of its four residents: the two parents, their 8.5-year-old daughter by the name of Hermione, and their six-year-old son by the name of… well, he used to not have any name to go by, or any birthday to mark his age, or anything to call his own, but he was permited to choose his own name by the Granger parents, so, from 1985 until now and forever and ever, he is Loki Laufeychilde Granger.

Here, he has his own bedroom, which is _not_ the cupboard under the stairs or the tool shed outside the house. Here, he has his own books and drawing pads and colouring kits _and toys_. Here, he goes to school in a small – but rather dauntingly posh – nursery school nearby and meet rather friendly children. Here, he gets to celebrate his “birthday” – the day his new dad brought him home and started the adoption thing – by going to places that he wants to visit. Here, he shares chores with _everyone_ in the house, and his chores are _only_ tidying up his bedroom, putting his dirty laundry in the basket to be cleaned elsewhere, helping everyone make little meals like toasts and simple sandwiches, and picking up after himself after a meal.

Here, he has _family_ : grown-ups who are trying so hard to be good and nice mum and dad for him and his elder sister, and a child that is his sister who may be too much at times but never means harm to him.

Here, dares he say, he is _happy_. And now he does think that he knows what “happy” means.

Just, sadly, an old – no, _elderly_ – man comes by, one morning, and knocks at the door, and invites himself in… and he knows nothing else, afterwards.

He doesn’t even remember that he is Loki Laufeychilde Granger of Elm Street number fifteen, Waybridge, Surrey, England.

“Harry James Potter” is imprinted loudly on the fore of his mind, but it sounds hollow, detached, out of context. There is something vague that makes him remember “Harry” and “Potter” on separate occasions, but the substance of these words, too, feels like bad bricks covered by thin, drab, bottom-of-the-pail paint.

Worse yet is the equally fake assertion that he lives on Privet Drive number four, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, that it is his _home_. He knows that address, he knows the house that stands there, but it is _not_ home to him. Only a meager shelter with meager meals and more meager comforts, unlike the place that he can no longer recall, the place that he is _sure_ he has just left.

Still, he finds himself not in that homely place, but here on Privet Drive number four, in a very small, very packed bedroom that he knows but doesn’t recognise as his.

A woman’s voice calls up the stairs to him for dinner, quite grudgingly and gratingly, and he finds himself obeying her automatically. He doesn’t remember who she is to him, what her name is, or what will happen to him if he doesn’t obey immediately, but he _knows_ that he _must_ obey.

Down the stairs, he spies a wooden, triple-padlocked door beneath, and his feet automatically carry him there, as if by habbit… or maybe it is, before the sweet, sweet life – or is it _lives_? – that he can no longer remember.

A large, round boy with blond hair and blue eyes stomps into the house from the front door just as his hand connects with the old, worn wooden panel of the cupboard under the stairs. Power that lingers in the wood licks his fingertips, tingling _and his own_.

The space inside is intimately familiar and comforting but also confining, he remembers.

He opens the padlocks one by one and peers inside.

The large, stompy boy shoves him in, just so, and he finds himself landing on a soft but dusty – _terribly dusty_ – surface, sneezing violently even as he hears the padlocks engaging.

He is locked in this tiny space, which is barely large enough for him and all the forsaken items lying round here.

Claustrophobia sets in, and he shivers violently, but oddly enough there is a sense of home, too, in this spot in the indifferent house, as pitiful and twisted as it feels.

It might have to do with the tingles of power – _his own power_ – permeating the stale air in here, he decides, once he recovers enough wit from the grip of the helpless terror being locked in invokes. The tingles are wrapped particularly thickly round items that he recognises as old non-perishables and bottles of some liquid he doesn’t know about, which are also draped beneath a few pairs of large, worn clothes.

Somebody – _he_? – lived here, or hid in here, and stockpiled items necessary for survival.

` _Well, not a bad idea, that,_ ` he tells himself, as he catalogues everything that is available to him, ignoring the sounds of a meal in progress from somewhere else in the house with some effort. He is sure he will not be welcome at the table, anyway, even if somebody frees him from here, though he doesn’t know why or how he knows.

He curls up on what he now knows as a particularly thick, particularly soft, particularly big duvet, after cleaning it and everything else from dust with his tingles. His stomach twists and squeezes and knots into itself, rumbling all the while, but he doggedly ignores it. He had much experience with aweful hunger, anyway, or so it feels, though his more recent memories – shadowed as they are all – contradict it confusingly.

He drops into restless sleep some time amidst the confusion and hunger pangs. Dreamland only offers him more confusion, as scenes both real and fake meld into one.

And it continues that way, as day melts into another day and he does all that are demanded of him by the adults while evading the large, loud, stompy child as much as he can. He is enrolled at a school nearby, which the other boy – Dudley, Dudders, Popkins – also attends, and does his best with the subjects that seem oddly easy. The adults – Petunia and Vernon, from how they call each other and the neighbours call them – claim that he had been missing till he came back home on his own a while ago, amnesiac. So he searches for the term in the school’s library during breaks from lessons, then to the public library of Little Whinging whenever he gets the slightest freedom from his chores during the day.

There are a handful kinds of amnesia, the books say, but none of them seems to be true for him. The word “Obliviate” rang just as loudly as “Harry James Potter,” when he first found himself in the smallest bedroom on Privet Drive number four, but it – not “oblivion” nor “oblivious,” either – doesn’t feature in any of the definitions. It makes him obsessed with everything related to the mind, from judging and predicting the actions of a person to mental diseases and traumas such as his.

He uses the missing-and-amnesiac claim whenever he roams in the greater neighbourhood, which is whenever his chores are done while the library is unavailable for some reason. He helps the neighbours, though sometimes he feels in truth too tired and fed up with chores, and acquaints himself with those kind souls – or _re_ acquaints himself, most of them claim. Sometimes, they give him pocket money or trinkets or gently used necessities; and these, beyond even their conviction, affirm that he indeed lived in this neighbourhood once, as he found a jealously guarded jar of money in the cupboard under the stairs – _his_ cupboard – in his first exploration.

In other times, whenever he feels too frustrated and cooped up and plain _exhausted_ with this confusing, stifling, empty existence, he lets Dudley and the latter’s gang of fellow bullies to chase him in their game of Harry Hunting. They never catch him, as he uses his tingles to make him stronger and faster whenever he is too tired or slow or cornered, but it only makes them more persistent. It is the only interaction he has with children his age – eight years old, his class teacher said, not six as he somehow believed beforehand – but he feels rather comfortable with it.

People hurt, and he has been hurt too many times to chance it. He _might_ chance it, someday, even make a friend, but not _now_.

Now, and first of all, he needs to find _himself_.


	7. Developments

Summer 1988

The local school has tested “Harry James Potter” out of primary level. His maths and physics need some improvements, as well as the fluency of his essays, but a summer’s worth of tutoring on those subjects will see him safely into secondary level without any trouble.

The Dursleys were _mad_ , like they never had been before, in the boy’s limited, shadowy recollection. It prompted him to run away, and Mrs. Fig of Wisteria Walk number twelve sheltered him for a while. She even referred him to several neighbours who would tutor him for some time each week in exchange for his help round their homes!

Many of the neighbours believe that he is an attention-seeking brat, sadly, after his escape from Privet Drive number four has made the rounds in the greater neighbourhood, as the Dursley adults claim so, but fortunately not _all_ of them. As payment for the kindness of those who do not so readily believe in the Dursleys, he works extra dilligently in their homes whenever they invite him there. Fortunately, his new tutors belong to this category, as well as Mrs. Fig.

He grows to enjoy science for its own sake when one of the tutors, a retired chemistry teacher by the name of Mr. John Lewis, leads him in a few simple scientific experiments for chemistry and physics. With his improved recall, achieved after all the sessions of meditation he has begun to conduct after reading it on a book about retrieving memories from amnesiac people, he even manages to memorise the table of elements! Mr. Lewis is as happy as can be, and that makes him happy, too. The man even looks… proud? Well, Mr. Lewis tells him that, in any case; that he is _very_ proud of “Harry,” that is. It makes the boy torn between wanting to be a doctor for the mind or a chemist, though… or maybe both.

The choice is made even harder when his tutor for essay writing, a Ms. Penelope Scamander, introduces him not only to tricks to avoid jumping all over the place when describing or arguing something on writing, but also to _other languages and the people who use them_. Latin, for example, is supposed to be a dead language, but so many people still use them as motto or in church or even just for fun! She got him interested in the meanings, variations and roots of people’s names, too. She even shows him how Shakespeare – a famous play writer from the middle ages, apparently – played with words….

He is _ecstatic_ when, for his supposed birthday on the thirty-first of July, Mr. Lewis gives him his own chemistry set, with the proviso that he do his experiments under adult supervision, while Ms. Scamander gifts him with a copy of Shakespeare’s _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ play transcript. Mr. Anthony Becket, his maths tutor, has a homemade deck of maths cue cards for him waiting on their next tutoring session, and it touches him deeply as well, though both Mr. Becket and he know he has no passion or patience for maths.

Autumn 1988

Life as a student at secondary school is _hard_. “Harry James Potter” is _expected_ to do great things by the teachers for having jumped at least two levels in his schooling beyond the norm. Meanwhile, most of his new classmates – schoolmates, in fact – feel wierded out by the presence of “a little kid” in their midst. He receives only an expectant nod from the formers when he performs somewhat beyond the norm, and disappointed looks when he lags behind or performs the same as the other students. As for the latters, now he finds out _the hard way_ that defending himself physically is far harder when his schoolmates are mostly three times his size. It doesn’t help that, as punishment for his “ingratitude” to dare to outshine their precious child so much, the Dursley adults assign him triple the chores, regardless of if he is recovering from a beating from the school bullies or there are a stack of school assignments waiting to be completed for the next day or week.

His now-rare little experiments with Mr. Lewis and scrabble games with Ms. Scamander are the only silver lining that he has for a long time.

And then Mr. Becket manages to get him for tea one afternoon, and frowns when he limps in, and scowls outright when he expounds about his secondary-school life, _and enrolls him for children self-defence lessons out of the man’s own pocket_.

The boys bursts into grateful tears right away.

It doesn’t mean that his life immediately gets better after that. In fact, he struggles to fit his new self-defence schedule into his terribly hectic routine, especially since the class is held in Greater Whinging, which is an hour’s bus ride from the nearest bus stop from Privet Drive. And, most likely to spite him and Mr. Becket’s kindness, the Dursleys harass him even more after they got the news about the lessons, before enrolling Dudley into boxing class and looking the other way when the wannabe champion boxer tries to bully him with some boxing moves. It’s still worth all the added troubles, though. The mixed martial arts class that he attends every Wednesday and Saturday doesn’t only teach him and the other children about self-defence moves, but also when _not_ to use them and how to use them responsibly. “Don’t bully the weaker,” “Violence is never the first solution” and “With great power comes great responsibility” soon become part of his own rules in life.

Somewhat unexpectedly, he _makes a friend_ , too, in that class: an artist of a boy _of his own age_ who also likes to tinker with machinery by the name of Dean Thomas. With some effort, and with lots of help from Dean’s stepfather, the boys even manage to repair a couple of old radio transceivers in several consecutive weekends. They use the beaten-up but awesome radios to chat with each other ever since, and how happy is the little freak of Privet Drive number four to have a friend at last!

And, apparently not wanting to be outdone by their fellow tutor after listening to the boy’s enthusiastic stories about his class and new friend, Ms. Scamander offers to buy him a pet while Mr. Lewis gets him to play tennis in-between science observations or experiments.

Actually, the boy finds out that all three adults have been meeting with each other somewhat regularly to talk about him during his second tennis game with Mr. Lewis. It’s… just… _incredible_! It’s like having awesome aunt and uncles – like having a _family_!

He tries to buy the cheapest pet available, when Ms. Scamander brings him to the big pet shop in London one Sunday, unwilling to burden his self-dubbed aunt after she has shown him so much kindness. She looks irritated _with him_ about that, though, so he returns the young dull-grey hamster he has been handling back into its cage and wanders the big room in search of something else, all too aware that her sharp eye is constantly on him.

He hears lazy and sleepy noises from the far corner, which apparently comes from a tank of corn snakes, or so the shopkeeper says. He frowns at the mass of slowly slithering snakes, puzzled of why he can hear _human_ voices coming out of them. “Hello?” he tries to talk to them, after surreptitiously looking round and finding nobody nearby.

And the snakes _perk up_.

“A speaker!” they chorus raggedly. “A speaker! A speaker! Exciting!” But they mostly just say that….

The boy frowns. This apparently newfound ability is interesting, if even freakier than his tingly power, but the snakes themselves are _boring_.

“Do you like living here?” he tries again, one more time.

The lazily contented noises that he gets send him away with a disheartened farewell.

Ms. Scamander ends up bringing him to a craft store to browse for options for his “down time,” as nothing in the pet shop seems to interest him. The boy would rather that she give him a gift card for the bookstore or nothing at all, actually, but, still, he dutifully peruses the wide selections of art-making tools and materials there.

Well, he still has his drawing kit from before the spring incident that robbed him of memory and put him back on Privet Drive number four, and he rarely uses it as it is, so now he thinks of learning something more useful… like knitting.

Better yet, Ms. Scamander is well versed in things related to making garments, from actually carding the raw materials, spinning the yarn, etcetera, to cutting or arranging some simple clothe patterns and a handful of functional and decorative stitches. _And_ she agrees to teach him knitting as the easiest and most immediately useful garment-making type!He will be set for winter, this way, he thinks, in case he can’t go to the library or the self-defence class, or even to his kindly acquaintances among the adults in the greater neighbourhood of Little Whinging.

He is determined to learn well and make her a nice set of knitted things at the end of it.

Well, her and Mr. Lewis and Mr. Becket and Mrs. Fig, really.

His family.


	8. Disclosure

Winter 1988

Having the occasional tea with Ms. Scamander, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Becket is yet another routine for the boy who lives in the cupboard under the stairs of Privet Drive number four, by now. But despite its regularity, the boy still cherishes each occasion immensely. His memories have not returned even after all the effortful tricks he tried, except through frustrating and/or confusing dreams and déjà vu moments, but he is pretty sure that he has never experienced any familial sort of moment since he was very, very small, while his teatime with these adults _is_ a family moment.

There is something very, very different, though, this Christmas Day.

For one, the boy _got permission from the Dursleys_ to spend _three days_ staying over at Ms. Scamander’s, from Christmas Eve till Boxing Day, while some relative visits Privet Drive number four.

For two, Ms. Scamander and Mr. Becket seem quite close with each other, more than she and Mr. Lewis, and they _blush_ when the boy hesitantly points it out to them, while Mr. Lewis goes off roaring with tickled laughter.

For three, the teatime has stretched out from after breakfast all through lunch and till they are approaching dinnertime, and none of the adults mind the haphazard eating and drinking.

And for four, Ms. Scamander _and_ Mr. Becket seem to have a secret they wish to tell the boy; a secret that Mr. Lewis has found out or been told beforehand, which is _not_ about the relationship between Ms. Scamander and Mr. Becket that the boy firstly guessed.

_And then_ , just as the boy is enjoying a second slice of treacle tart in one day, Ms. Scamander asks, “Harry, have you ever done something out of the norm? Like, moving a book or a toy without touching it?”

Words like “unnatural,” “freak,” “devil” and “abomination” immediately circle in the boy’s mind like how he imagines vultures would circle above a dying animal _or person_. At the same time, he knows everything that his power has achieved, whether he remembers having applied it or not, from getting his cupboard free of dust to running away from Dudley and his gang only to find himself suddenly perched high up in a tree.

The treacle tart suddenly feels like ash in his mouth, and he puts his plate on the marble top of the low table the foursome are gathered round with shaking hands and bowed head.

Ms. Scamander, seated right across from him, gives him a kind, encouraging smile when he finally dares to look up again. Mr. Becket who is seated beside her gives him the same smile, and Mr. Lewis who is seated beside the boy offers, “Clothes changing colours, maybe? Or cleaning up your room without your hands?”

“Room, sir,” the boy manages, at length, in a small voice. “And food holds longer. I found myself on a tree, too, once.”

He hunkers down low, afterwards, expecting lots of bad things happening, from the Dursleys’ monickers for him thrown by these awesome people to him being kicked out from their company forever and ever.

But Mr. Lewis _picks him up and cuddles him on the man’s lap_ , instead.

He bursts into confused but grateful tears, just so.

He gets a very, very amazing story of magic and magical everything – community, items, animals, places, spells and many more – when he has calmed down a little. Ms. Scamander and Mr. Becket turn out to be non-magical people born from magical parents, while Mr. Lewis is simply a non-magical person who knew about magic just when the adults began to get together. Neither Ms. Scamander nor Mr. Becket ever contacted the magical community after they were separated from their families after not receiving an acceptance letter to a magical school, but they did it recently, for _him_. And, in that information-gathering mission, they found out about “Harry James Potter” the supposed hero of the whole magical community.

It’s like a fairytale.

“I’m not a hero, though,” he squeaks when Mr. Becket explains that point to him.

The man shakes his head. “No,” he agrees, then quickly adds, “You are _our Harry_. It’s aweful and ludicrous, anyway, to burden a child with the death of a powerful madman. Your parents must have done something awesome. And you will be awesome, too, _after_ you learn things.”

“Sometimes, I think I remember,” the boy confesses in an even smaller voice. “Sometimes I see green light, and red hair, or maybe red eyes, or maybe both. A flying motorcycle, too.”

He expects scorn or ridicule or scepticism or all three, like he would have received from the Dursleys. But he hears Ms. Scamander sniffling instead. And when he looks up, he sees Mr. Becket’s eyes _also_ tearful, although the man doesn’t let out a peep. _And_ Mr. Lewis hugs him _closer_ , cocooning him, as if wanting to protect him from the recollection.

Nice. So nice. Truly like a family, or at least the version that he has always imagined.

He confesses to them that he never has any association with the name “Harry James Potter,” then. But names have power, according to them, and he should own his family name, at least, anyway, because he might have house-elves and properties and other things tied to it, as the Potters are a very old family and old families tend to accumulate such things.

“You could choose a name for your everyday use, aside from that?” Mr. Lewis offers when the boy slumps in the man’s arms, hearing such weighty responsibilities that he never knew beforehand. “Maybe something that can be shortened to ‘Harry’ like ‘Henry’ or ‘Harold’? Or something totally different?”

“James Potter – your father – married Lily Evans, according to the _Daily Prophet_ – the British magical community’s newspaper – and a few other sources,” Mr. Becket pipes in. “You could take up your mother’s maiden name, if you want it, when not in formal capacity. You could even post to academic journals using such name.”

The boy nods to the good, kind suggestions. But presently, his attention is thoroughly hooked on the names of his purported parents, which he has never known before. “James Potter,” he repeats, slowly, savouring every syllable. “Lily Evans.”

“Nice names,” Ms. Scamander smiles. “What about Henry Evans, lad?”

“Jimmy Lewis?” Mr. Lewis grins, cuddling the boy closer.

“Rupert Becket?” Mr. Becket laughs, a little hoarsely.

“Perry Scamander?” Ms. Scamander joins in, rolling her eyes fondly, then finishes in emphasis, “Anyway, lad, choose what you want – any of these, or all of them, or your own making – but make sure it’s _you_ , and don’t forget to tell us, of course.”

“Any?” the boy prods gingerly. When he receives affirmations from all three adults, he ventures further, “With Scamander and Lewis and Becket?”

Ms. Scamander _beams_ at him. Mr. Becket’s eyes are warm. And when the boy twists a little to look up at Mr. Lewis, the man looks _tentatively hopeful_.

“My children and grandchildren are all girls,” Mr. Lewis grins, perhaps in answer to the boy’s quizzical look. “I love them, I do, but it’s nice to play with a boy for once.” Then he adds in a confiding whisper, “None of them happen to like chemistry, too.”

A matching grin slowly, tentatively stretches the boy’s lips to the maximum. It stays, though it feels like _getting bigger_ , when he looks at Mr. Becket and the man confesses that he is an old single man who has always wanted a child to call his own.

“Me too.” Ms. Scamander hasn’t lost her beaming smile, but now some colour is added to her fair complexion, and her eyes shine as brightly as sunlight on a sheet of smooth ice over moss. “We hoped to marry some time next year… and we hoped to adopt you after that. John thought to be your godfather, in that case. So, what do you think, lad?”

The boy can only sit gaping for a long, long, long while, hearing that. ` _Miss Scamander and Mister Becket! Marry! Adopting **me**! And a godfather!_` It really, really, really sounds like a dream, a good dream, a _very nice_ dream. But something in him whispers that the experiences that he can no longer remember were mostly nice, too. ` _So will I forget this, too, somehow? I don’t want that!_ `

He tells the adults that, and they look alarmed now, but they aren’t mad at him, so he does his best to relax and watch their reactions.

“We’ll take steps to watch out against the wand-wielders,” Ms. Scamander decides at last, after mutual fretting along with Mr. Becket and Mr. Lewis. “We thought to bring you to Diagon Alley – a magical shopping centre – this evening, but maybe we should postpone it till we are ready. It doesn’t make me not wanting to marry Anthony and adopt you, though. That is, if you are all right with it, of course, Harry.”

The boy nods shyly to that. “Yes,” he affirms softly, right after.

And that is just _that_. The new, semi-official family forgo talking further about the weighty details in favour of celebrating the rest of the Christmas Day, with Boxing Day still to look forward to.

And the boy who accidentally united them all just basks in the atmosphere, quietly, deeply, as deeply as he can, so that if he loses memories of this day like he did with however many days before, or things don’t work out as all of them have hoped, he still has imprints of today to cherish.

He knows _very well_ that there is something called “too good to be true,” after all.


	9. Diagon Alley

Spring 1989

The little boy who lives in the cupboard under the stairs of Privet Drive number four, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, now goes by the name Henry John Evans under the suggestion of his hopefully soon-to-be second mum and dad. He practises with his power whenever he is not studying for school or with his new family, cleaning things and changing things and warding things and preserving things and making the Dursleys forget about him most of the times. When he pours his power into himself, he even changes _himself_! Well, he accidentally wakes up the Dursleys with his screaming, the first time, though he’s put a don’t-notice-me protection round himself against them, but it does _hurt_! Like being scalded by terribly hot and terribly cold water at the same time, in every milimetre _inside_ of him. And the worst is round his lightning-bolt scar, which then fades till it’s almost unrecogniseable as a scar.

He doesn’t have problems seeing, though, after that, both in the mundane meaning and… _more_ , because he can “see” _something_ not with his eyes, in things and people all round him, to greater or lesser degree. He feels light, too, _free_ , like he never was till things have changed and he has something for comparison.

He is not _only_ a boy, either, after that accident, and he doesn’t know what to feel about that. Now he can be a girl, too, _and_ something in-between.

In fact, he feels the most _right_ when he is something in-between: a boy _and_ a girl _and also something else that isn’t totally human_.

He shows his hopefully soon-to-be parents and godfather his forms, when they next meet, and they _appreciate_ them – appreciate _him_.

So he is _they_ whenever the four of them can get together for tea or game or anything else, now, and takes up the name Aidan from the bunch of unisex names the adults suggest for them.

Well, they don’t feel like “fire” or “fiery” like the name suggests, and their nature is predisposed to the cold rather than the hot, but the meaning isn’t literal anyway, to them. Because if they are destined to lead a family anyway, they would rather be the torch for people to see by and to take comfort from _when necessary_ , rather than some awesome being that they have to obey or something _whenever possible_.

Mr. Becket gifts them the name Polaris, to complement that, after the north star that sailors of old used as guidance, since the boy who is now a between is descended also from the Blacks, not only the Potters, and the Blacks give their children star-related names.

Aidan Polaris Evans-Potter-Black. A mouthful, that, but awesome, and awesome things are supposed to be cherished and relished instead of used everyday, anyway, so the child doesn’t use that everyday, and is content to being called Aidan or Polaris or even shorter than any of those – as long as the caller means well with it! – in everyday setting.

Today is _not_ everyday, though. Today the four of them are going to Diagon Alley – at last! And Harry James Potter is a well-known name and somehow a well-known face, so the child feels doubly sure of using Aidan Polaris Evans-Potter-Black for the day. They even politely request the tingles to change their body to something unrecogniseable but still _them_ , for this excursion; something that they might even associate with this name from now on.

Judging from the somewhat-slithery, somewhat-fluid head-to-toe shift that signifies the change, also the gasps of the adults arrayed round them for the trip, they are successful in the endeavour.

And then Ms. Scamander brings out her hand mirror, and positions it so that the child can see the entirety of their head, and it’s their turn to gasp.

They’re… different, in a “wow” sort of way. Their hair is still messy and short and thick, but it is deep dark red and somehow deeply familiar and comforting to them. Their face is still their new androgynous one, but the cheeks are more “aristocratic” now as Ms. Scamander says it. And their eyes are no longer green, whether the before-change almond-shaped “emerald green” or the after-change small and round “leafy green,” but larger though still round deep dark blue.

They like it.

The four of them board Mr. Lewis’ car, then, and head to London, to Charing Cross Road, where the Leaky Cauldron pub is, behind which lie the hidden “alleys” that are the London shopping centre of the British magical community, according to Ms. Scamander and Mr. Becket. The child that is Aiden is torn between chattering out questions about their destination and curtailing their excitement so that the adults will be inclined to bring them there again next time. And then, thankfully, Mr. Becket gives them a small book about the history of their very destination for them to occupy themself till the car arrives at the pub.

Experiencing the _living history_ of the pub and Diagon Alley still beats reading the book about it, though. The pub itself is sort of gloomy but clean, the keeper is harmless-looking _and_ kind, seeing the bricks of the back wall of the pub rearranging themselves to form a huge gateway is _wow_ , and, of course, Diagon Alley itself–!

Aidan wishes that they had _lots_ of eyes to see _everything_ all at once and catalogue those sights for later, much slower, detailed, cherished perusal. It’s like stepping into a different world! The cobblestone street and some structures remind them of what books say and illustrate about the English medieval era. But some of the outfits worn by the milling shoppers aren’t consistent with such era, and a few of the shoppers even wear something rather similar to the T-shirt-and-jeans-and-trainers combo that they are wearing for this excursion, or at least something more modern than robes and long dresses. _And_ they doubt that _anybody_ in the medieval era would openly sell things such as “Quidditch equipment” or have a _bank_ by any name – let alone “Gringotts,” hence _different world_.

The foursome content themselves with window shopping for a long, long while. Given that Ms. Scamander and Mr. Becket spent their childhoods in the magical community, they automatically become the tour guides to Mr. Lewis and Aidan. And while the first group tend to perceive everything with understandably bitter melancholy, the latter cannot help but marvel at what they see. Trunks with a _full-furnished flat_ in them, small bags which seem to have no bottom while weighing as light as a feather, potions for nearly everything one can think of, bizarre and yucky and mundane-seeming and magical ingredients for equally magical potions, _wands_ , a white marble edifice whose grand doors are guarded by _goblins_ who bear sharp weapons openly and competently….

Both groups only have positive reactions to the bookstores and the ice-cream parlour, though.

“We should visit Gringotts after this,” says Ms. Scamander while the foursome are enjoying their respective ice creams. They have been exchanging observations and ideas about the topics available for general consumption, the corresponding books sold in the bookstores, and who usually read them, and Aidan is especially happy about the fields of “potions” and “ancient runes” and the respective uses of those fields.

“The goblins will issue you a new key and invalidate any previous keys for Aiden,” the woman explains when three pairs of eyes look confusedly at her for the seeming non-sequitur. “The rest of us can exchange some mundane money for the magical one. That way, we needn’t just pine over things. I know for a fact you’ve been eyeing those potions kits, John.”

“Maybe you can teach me about potions after that, Mister Lewis?” the child among them pipes up, then, squirming with barely held back excitement. “Do you think I can buy a trunk to live in? Or one of those bottomless bags?”

Mr. Lewis laughs, not unkindly. “Slow down, Aidan,” he admonishes them gently. “I know nothing about potions. As for other things, maybe we should see about what your parents left you, first?”

“Oh, yes.” Aidan sobers up quickly, remembering about their parents, _whom they at last got to know about_. “Do you think we could find something about them in the bookstores?”

“We shall see, I guess,” Mr. Becket murmurs, hugging the child sidewise, as they’re seated on the same bench. “Now, finish your ice cream first.”

In reality, though, the first truly magical thing that Aidan receives, not on their own money at that since apparently Mr. Becket still keeps some wizarding money from decades ago, is a medium-sized white teddy bear holding a blue heart. The heart exudes a peaceful, gentle feeling when pressed against one’s chest. “A perfect cuddle-buddy for anyone and everyone,” declares the man, and he replies to Aidan’s stuttered, profuse thanks with a tight embrace and the first application of the said cuddle-buddy.

Privately, Aidan thinks that, however much money is left for him by his late parents, it will never top this gift.

Given _right to his hands_ by his soon-to-be _dad_ , with the little money that the man has been hoarding all these decades.

Diagon Alley is magical, but this teddy bear is _even more so_.


End file.
